Great Performances: Felicity Huffman as Bree Osbourne

Felicity Huffman's brilliant performance as the pre-op male-to-female transsexual Bree Osbourne in Transamerica is a triumph on many levels.

Anyone who has seen Huffman on her television show Desperate Housewives knows that she is a beautiful woman, even with her frazzled working mother exterior. Yet in Transamerica, she is unrecognizable, and it is more then the make-up and frumpy costumes. Huffman physically transformed herself in the role, and is entirely believable as a biological male yearning to be female.

You can feel the aching to achieve what she so desperately wants, to fit in (to "pass") in the way Bree carries herself. Every gesture, every mannerism is controlled to the utmost, for fear someone may detect the masculinity buried deep within.

This control is shaken when her pending sexual reassignment surgery is jeopardized by a ghost from her past: a son she never knew she had. Toby, a scraggly street hustler, enters her life at what she thinks is the worst possible time. However, by getting to know him during their long, event-filled cross-country journey, she comes to realize that meeting him may have been the best thing that ever happened to her.

Huffman won several awards for her performance in Transamerica, including the Golden Globe and the Independent Spirit Award, and was also nominated for the Academy Award.

Click here to purchase Transamericaon DVD from Amazon.com.
Link via Imdb.com.

The Latest on DVD: Desperate Living

This week's new DVD releases:

Featured Titles:

• Desperate Housewives: The Complete Third Season- Highlights include a gun-toting Laurie Metcalf and Dixie Carter as a murderous mommie dearest. Also available in a Spanish version.
• A Special Day- While Mussolini meets Hitler, Sophia Loren bonds with her gay neighbor Marcello Mastroianni (in an Oscar nominated performance).
• Bosom Buddies - The Second Season- Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari are Kip and Henry, a.ka. Buffy and Hildegard, in this cross-dressing sitcom favorite. Also available, along with the first season, in a complete series box set.
• Stranger Than Paradise- Jim Jarmusch’s influential indie gets the Criterion treatment in this two-discer.

What Else is New:

• Georgia Rule- Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman and the infamous Lindsay Lohan star in this inter-generational dramedy.
• The Wind That Shakes the Barley- Cillian Murphy stars as an Irish freedom fighter.
• Night on Earth- Another Jim Jarmusch classic on the Criterion label, starring Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder and Rosie Perez.

From the Vaults:

• Alibi- This early Best Picture nominee stars Chester Morris as a prohibition-era gangster accused of killing a policeman.
• Be Yourself!- Fanny Brice stars as a nightclub singer who helps her boxer beau.
• The Lottery Bride- Jeanette MacDonald is caught between two brothers, each vying for her love, in this musical romance.
• Movie Songs Live- TCM's Robert Osbourne hosts a look at your favorite movie music memories, including songs from Grease, Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing.

TV on DVD:

• 30 Rock: Season 1- Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Jane Krakowski star in this Emmy-nominated comedic look behind the scenes of a TV show. Also available in two separate volumes.
• The Office: Season 3- Steve Carell stars in another Emmy-nominated, workplace-set comedy.
• Prison Break: Season 2- Hotties Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell are cons on the run in this dramatic thriller.
• Nip/Tuck - The Complete Fourth Season- More hotties: Julian McMahon and Dylan Walsh get down and dirty as Miami's best plastic surgeons. Also available in HD-DVD and Blu-ray.
• Dirty Jobs: Collection 1- And the hotness never stops: hunky Mike Rowe hosts this always entertaining look at the worst jobs in the world.
• I Dream of Jeannie - The Fourth Season- Sorry, Larry Hagman and Bill Daily (ew), but the hotness stops there.
• Original Television Christmas Classics Sing-A-Long - And finally, get your Christmas spirit started early with this collection of holiday TV tunes such as my personal faves, "Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Put One Foot in Front of the Other".

Click on the individual links to purchase the DVDs at Amazon.com.

Nothin' But a Hound Dog

It's a lazy Labor Day, but I had to share this adorable video clip that will surely be making the rounds like the 'Dramatic Prairie Dog' and the "Thriller" dancing prisoners.

Although it has nothing to do with movies, it did remind me of Copper ("I'm a hound dog!") from Disney's The Fox and the Hound. And it' just so darn cute. Enjoy!

Link via YouTube.com and Imdb.com.

Cinematic Crush: Clive Owen

A consummate dramatic actor who nevertheless has no qualms with taking on more action-orientated roles, Clive Owen has caught our collective eye on more then one occasion, and not just for his smoldering good looks.

Owen first drew critically attention for his impressive lead performances in Bent (playing a gay Nazi concentration camp prisoner) and Croupier, and he stood out in the crowd that was Gosford Park. Starring roles followed in two films (Beyond Borders, with Angelina Jolie, and King Arthur) that, although they ended up failing at the box office, did up his profile enough for him to be on the shortlist to replace Pierce Brosnan as super spy James Bond.

We all know that didn't happen, but Owen found consolation when he won the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, plus an Oscar nomination, for Mike Nichols' Closer. Owen pretty much stole that movie away from stars Julia Roberts and Jude Law, as he later did to Denzel Washington in Inside Man. Before that one, though, he went badass in the graphic novel-brought-to-life Sin City; he'll reprise his role in the sequel (when/if it is ever made).

Last year, Owen turned in his finest performance to date as the reluctant hero of Children of Men. His Theo is a character whose haunted past simmers just below the surface; you can see it clouding his eyes. He aches for redemption, yet is afraid of it; every movement, every gesture that he makes is racked with the guilt of loss and lost opportunities.

Owen's next two films show further proof of his range: first, he'll be seen in another shoot 'em up role in the appropriately titled Shoot 'Em Up (opening this Friday); next, he'll don the period attire of Sir Walter Raleigh in the historical epic Elizabeth: The Golden Age. No matter the role, we'll still keep an eye on him.

Click here for Owen's recent interview with Details Magazine.

Links via Imdb.com and Men.Style.com.